is! Honesty is the best policy after all!"

At this moment his elbow was nudged, and opening his eyes he beheld one of the office boys, whom he had sent up to the theatre half an hour ago, to ask for six reserved seats near the stage.

"Mr. PUPPET says he's very sorry, sir," said the boy, "but the seats is all taken for to-night, and so he can't send any."

"Can't send any, can't he?" exclaimed BEZZLE, wide awake. "All right. Just go to Mr. SNAPPETY, the dramatic editor, for me, and tell him not to say one word about that theatre in his criticism to-morrow, I'll teach Mr. PUPPET," etc., etc., etc.

SPIFFKINS.

TURKEYS—A FANTASY.

e hear a great deal from scientific men about the influence of climate, atmosphere, and even the proximity of certain mineral substances, upon the life and welfare of man; but there is yet another vein to be worked in this region of human knowledge. Taking a chance train of ideas—an excursion-train, we may say—which came in our way on last Thanksgiving, we were brought to some interesting conclusions in regard to the influence exercised by the turkey upon human affairs. The annual happiness of how many thousands at the return of Thanksgiving Day—the unfed woes of how many thousands more—does this estimable fowl revolve within his urbane crop! Every kernel of grain which he picks from the barn-floor may represent an instant of masticatory joy held in store for some as yet unconscious maxillary; we may weigh the bird by the amount of happiness he will afford. When we go to market, to barter for our Thanksgiving turkey, we inquire substantially of the spruce vender, glistening in his white apron: "How much gustatory delight does yonder cock contain?" And he, gross slave of matter, doth respond, giving the estimate in dollars and parts of dollars!

But how inadequate is any material representative of his value to us. Indeed, it is next to impossible to conceive of the niceties involved in this question of how much we owe the turkey. For him the country air has been sweetened; the rain has fallen that he might thrive; the wheat and barley sprouted that he might be fed. A shade more of leanness in the legs, one jot less of rotundity in the breast—what misery might not these seemingly trivial incidents have created? A failure in the supply of turkeys?—it would have been a national calamity! What were life, indeed, without the turkey?

As for Thanksgiving, the turkey he is it. Paris, c'est la France! Remove the turkey, and you undermine Thanksgiving. How could a conscientious man go to church on Thanksgiving morning, knowing within himself that he shall return to beef, or mutton, or veal for his dinner, as on work-days? I tell you, religion would disappear with the turkey.

Toward the close of Thanksgiving, how manifest becomes the influence of this feathered sovereign. Observe yonder jaundiced youth pacing the street moodily, his lips set in a cynic sneer. His turkey was lean. I know it. He cannot hide that turkey. The gaunt fowl obtrudes himself from every part. On the other hand, none but the primest of prime turkeys could have set in motion this brisk old gentleman with the ruddy check and hale, clear eye, whom we next pass. A most stanch and royal turkey lurks behind that portly front—a sound and fresh animal, with plenty of cranberries to boot.—What are these soldiers? Carpet-knights who have united their thanks over a grand regimental banquet. What frisky gobblers they have shared in, to be sure! They prance and amble over the pavements as if they had absorbed the very soul of Chanticleer, and fancied themselves once more princes of the barnyard. The most singular and freakish of the turkey's manifestations this, by far!

Indeed, on a review of these suggestive facts, we cannot but feel a marvellous reverence for the potent cock, established as patron of this feast. This sentiment is wide-spread among our people, and perhaps it is not too fanciful to predict that it will some day expand itself to a cultus like that of the Egyptian APIS, or, more properly, the Stork of Japan. The advanced civilization of the Chinese, indeed, has already made the Chicken an object of religious veneration. In the slow march of ages we shall perhaps develop our as yet crude and imperfect religions into an exalted worship of the Turkey. Then shall the symbolic bird, trussed as for Thanksgiving, be enshrined in all our temples, and the multitudes making pilgrimage from afar to such sanctuaries shall be greeted by an inscription over the temple-gate of BRILLAT SAVARIN'S axiom:—

"Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are."

BOOTS.

MR. PUNCHINELLO:—Breaking in a young span of boots is ecstasy, or would be, if fitting bootmakers could be found; but there's the pinch, though they do give you fits sometimes.

Getting tailored to suit me, the next thing was to get booted, I succeeded. It cost me nineteen dollars.

I'd willingly return the compliment for nothing.

At last my boots were finished, and I went into them right and left; at least, I tried so to do.

With every nerve flashing lightning, I pulled and tugged most thrillingly, but in vain.

"There's no putting my foot in it," says I.

"Give one more try," says he.

Although almost tried out, I generously gave one more. I placed the bootmaker's awl in one strap, and his last-hook in the other, and with "two roses" mantling my cheeks, postured for the contest.

I tried the heeling process, and earnestly endeavored to toe the mark; but to successfully start the thing on foot was a bootless effort.

Then I slumberously gravitated, and dreamed thus:—

Old "LEATHERBRAINS" in SATAN'S livery, producing a hammer from a carpet-bag (he was a carpet-bagger), proceeded to shape my feet, and fill them with shoe-pegs.

My nap was ruffled, and not to be continued under those circumstances, so I wisely concluded it.

"They're on!" says the bootmaker.

And a tight on it was, excruciatingly so.

I suspected at the time that I had been put to sleep by chloroform, but I afterward remembered that a feeble youth was reading aloud from the Special Cable Dispatches of the Tribune.

My feelings centred in those boots, tears filled my eyes, and I was dumb with emotion, but quickly reviving, I slaked the cordwainer with a flood of rabid eloquence.

The cowering wretch suggested that they would stretch. He lied, the villain, he lied, they shrank.

However, "in verdure clad," I was persuaded into wearing them, and stiffly sidled off, a badgered biped, my head swinging round the circle, and my voice hanging on the verge of profanity all the way.

As fit boots they were a most successful failure. I gave them to the office boy; but the crutches I afterward bought him cost me twenty-seven dollars.

Henceforth I shall take my cue from JOHN CHINAMAN, and encase my understanding in wood. Yours calmly,

VICTOR KING.

Recognized at Last.

A recent telegram from London says:—

"The Prussian hussars rode down and out to pieces a regiment of marine infantry."

Hooray! Cheer, boys, cheer! The mythical Horse-Marines are thus at last recognized as an accomplished fact.

"As I was going to St. Ives."

At St. Ives, Huntingdonshire, England, Lord ROBERT MONTAGU, M.P., was lately burned in effigy by some intelligent boors, because he had joined the Roman Catholic faith. That tells badly for the burners, who should not have cared an f i g about the matter.

"Walker."

MCETTRICK, the pedestrian, was arrested at Boston, a few days since, for giving an exhibition without a license. He gave bail. Probably leg-bail.

On the Bench

When is a judge like the structures that are to support the Brooklyn Suspension-Bridge? When he's called a caisson.

AN OFFICER WHO MUST ALWAYS BE OUT OF GUN-SHOT RANGE.

General FARRE.

THE PLAYS AND SHOWS.

y this time everybody has seen Rip Van Winkle, and everybody has expressed the same unbounded admiration of Mr. JEFFERSON'S matchless genius. But the world never has been, and doubtless never will be, without the pestiferous presence of Reformers, Men of Progress, Earnest Men, who insist upon improving everything after their own fashion, and who are unhappy because they did not have the opportunity of making the solar year consist of an even number of days, and because they were not present at the building of the Ark, in order to urge upon NOAH the propriety of attaching a screw propeller to that primitive Great Eastern. These horribly energetic nuisances never find anything that precisely suits them, and are always insisting that everything stands in need of the improvements which they gratuitously suggest. Latterly they have ventured to attack Rip Van Winkle,—not the actor, but the play,—and to insist that the closing scene should be so modified as to make the play a temperance lecture of the most unmistakable character.

If you recollect—as of course you do—the last scene in that exquisite drama, you can still hear "RIP'S" tremulous voice as he says, "I will take my pipe and my glass, and will tell my strange story to all my friends. And I will drink your good health, and your family's, and may you live long and prosper." And now come the Progressive Nuisances, and ask Mr. JEFFERSON to change this ending so that it will read as follows:—

GRETCHEN.—"Here is your glass, RIP."

RIP.—"But I swore off."

GRETCHEN.—"Bless you, my husband. Promise me never more to touch the intoxicating beer-mug."

RIP.—"I promise. Hereafter I will take my TUPPER'S Proverbial Philosophy and my glass of water, and I will daily address all my friends on the subject of total abstinence from everything that cheers, whether it inebriates or not. And I will now close this evening's lecture by an appeal to the audience now present, to take warning by me, and never drink a drop of lager-beer. Think, my friends, what would be the feelings of your respective wives, should you return home, after a drunken sleep of twenty or thirty years, and find them all married to richer husbands! Think how they would revile the weakness of the beer which could not keep you asleep forever. Think how you would complicate the real estate business, when you came to turn out the mistaken people who had occupied, improved, and sold your property during your brief absence. Think of the difficulties that would arise from the increase in the size of your families, which would probably have taken place while you were sleeping out in the open air, and for which you would have to provide, although you had not been consulted in the matter. Think, too, of the extent to which you would be interviewed by the reporters of the Sun, and the atrocious libels concerning yourselves and your families which that unclean sheet would publish. Think of all these things, my friends, and then step into the box-office on your way out and sign the total abstinence pledge. The ushers will now make a collection for the support of the temperance cause. Mr. MOLLENHAUER will please lead the audience in singing that beautiful temperance anthem—"

"'Cold water is the only thing
Worth loving here below;
The man who won't its praises sing,
Will straight to Hades go.'"

Now, for one, I don't like this improved version of "RIP." Of course, the Temperance Reformers will construe this expression of opinion into an admission that every man, woman, or advocate of female suffrage, who has ever written a line for PUNCHINELLO is a confirmed drunkard. In spite of this probability, I still have the courage to maintain that so long as Mr. JEFFERSON is an artist, and not a temperance lecturer, he need not mix up the drama with the Temperance Reform, or any other hobby. If he is to be compelled to deliver a temperance address every time he plays Rip Van Winkle, let us compel Mr. GREELEY to play "RIP" every time he gives a temperance lecture. If the latter catastrophe were to happen, the punishment of the Reforming Nuisances would be complete.

There are, however, plays which could be changed so as to terminate much more naturally and effectively than they now do. For example, there is Enoch Arden. At present ENOCH, when he looks through the window and sees his wife enjoying herself with PHILIP in the dining-room, immediately lies down on the grass-plat in the back-yard, and groans in a most harrowing style,—after which he picks himself up, and, going back to his hotel, dies without so much as recognizing his old friends and congratulating them upon their prosperity. Now the way in which the play should have ended, had the dramatist wished to convince us that "ENOCH" was a reasonable being, would have been somewhat as follows:—

ENOCH (looking through the window).—"Well, here's a go. My wife has actually married PHILIP. They look pretty comfortable, too. PHILIP is evidently rich. Here's luck for me at last. I've got him where I can strike him pretty heavily." [He enters the house,]

PHILIP AND HIS WIFE.—"ENOCH! Can it be possible? Why, we thought you were entirely dead, and so we married. Well! well! This is a healthy state of things."

ENOCH (sternly).—"Mr. PHILIP RAY. You have had the impertinence to marry my wife. Sir! I consider that you have taken an unjustifiable liberty. Have you anything to say for yourself before I proceed to shoot you? I might mention that I once had a third cousin whose aunt by marriage was slightly insane, so you see that I can kill you with a calm certainty that the jury will acquit me, on the ground of my hereditary insanity."

PHILIP.—"Take a drink, old boy. We'll be reasonable about this matter. Don't attempt murder,—it's no longer respectable since MCFARLAND went into the business. Why can't we compromise this affair?"

ENOCH.—"It will cost you something. There are my lacerated feelings, which can't be repaired without a good deal of expense. Still I will do the fair thing by you. Give me fifty thousand dollars and I'll leave the country and say nothing more about it. You can keep my wife, if you want her. I'm sure I don't."

PHILIP.—"But I've been to a good deal of expense about her. Her clothes have cost me no end of money, and there are all our new children besides. Children, let me tell you, are a great deal more expensive now than they were in your day. Now, I'll give you twenty thousand dollars, and your wife, and we'll call it square."

ENOCH.—"No, sir. I don't want the wife, and I insist on more than twenty thousand dollars. I've got you entirely in my power, and you know it. I'll come down to forty thousand dollars, but not a cent less. Draw a check on the bank, or I'll draw a revolver on you. Be quick about it, too, for my hereditary insanity may develop itself at any moment."

PHILIP.—"Well, if I must, I must. Here is your money. How did you leave things at—well, at the place you came from? Everybody well, I hope?"

ENOCH.—"There were no people, and consequently nothing to drink there. Don't speak of the wretched place. Thanks for the check. Hope you'll find your wife satisfactory. Let this be a warning to you, not to marry a widow another time, unless you have a sure thing. Don't believe her when she says her husband is dead, unless you have him dug up, and personally inspect his bones.